New WSSU volleyball coach Swansboro HS grad

Andi Henderson, left, a Swansboro High School graduate and the new Winston-Salem State volleyball coach, talks with her former boss, Catawba College head volleyball coach Ginger Hamric. Henderson remembers as a Pirate athlete fondly, including making it to the regional finals in volleyball her final three seasons.

Submitted photo/Winston-Salem State

By Rick Scoppe-Sports Editor/The Daily News

Published: Saturday, April 6, 2013 at 11:00 AM.

After Andi Henderson finished answering questions about her first head volleyball coaching job at Winston-Salem State, the Swansboro native wanted to make sure no one thought she’d forgotten the folks back home.

“If you don’t mind,” the 28-year-old Henderson said, “would you put in there that I just appreciate everything coach (Kim) Miller has done for us, and just a shout out to our volleyball program at Swansboro in general and our team.

“I had the same team from my sophomore to senior year. I think we really started a good thing with our crew that came through, and I think we sparked a lot of interest in the volleyball world in Swansboro.”

Message sent, coach.

Henderson, who accepted the head coaching job at the Winston-Salem State back in February, was a key cog in Swansboro High School advancing to the NCHSAA 2-A East Regional finals her last three seasons. But being one step from the state finals still seemed to stick in her craw.

“That was disappointing to lose the game before states,” she said.

But there was nothing disappointing about taking over the Lady Rams program, which is coming off an 11-24 season (9-7 in the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association). After serving as an assistant for the Cherry Point women’s military team and then at Greensboro College and Catawba College, Henderson was excited to land her first head coaching job.

After Andi Henderson finished answering questions about her first head volleyball coaching job at Winston-Salem State, the Swansboro native wanted to make sure no one thought she’d forgotten the folks back home.

“If you don’t mind,” the 28-year-old Henderson said, “would you put in there that I just appreciate everything coach (Kim) Miller has done for us, and just a shout out to our volleyball program at Swansboro in general and our team.

“I had the same team from my sophomore to senior year. I think we really started a good thing with our crew that came through, and I think we sparked a lot of interest in the volleyball world in Swansboro.”

Message sent, coach.

Henderson, who accepted the head coaching job at the Winston-Salem State back in February, was a key cog in Swansboro High School advancing to the NCHSAA 2-A East Regional finals her last three seasons. But being one step from the state finals still seemed to stick in her craw.

“That was disappointing to lose the game before states,” she said.

But there was nothing disappointing about taking over the Lady Rams program, which is coming off an 11-24 season (9-7 in the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association). After serving as an assistant for the Cherry Point women’s military team and then at Greensboro College and Catawba College, Henderson was excited to land her first head coaching job.

“It always has been a goal of mine and a dream of mine,” she said in a telephone interview Thursday. “I’ve been involved in sports my whole life so being able to give back to the program, back to the kids, and the sport in general, has always been a goal.

“But it’s a good feeling to have head coach next to my name. I’m excited. I know when people are like, ‘head coach’ and ‘coach Henderson,’ that a lot of hard work was put into that title. I take pride in the title.”

Since her hiring, Henderson said she’s “been busy every day.”

After meeting with the team in early February, she got right to work with her players while getting “up to speed” on how WSSU does things along with a myriad of other issues, including scheduling.

“So it has been pretty much a whirlwind, but we’re all getting through it, the team and me together,” she said. “It’s just been a really good transition.”

Henderson first took up the sport that has turned into her career as a seventh grader. While a multi-sport athlete as a youngster, she had never tried her hand at volleyball. But given she had a void in her sports schedule, she decided to give it a try.

“I didn’t want to be the kid that wasn’t playing a sport. So I was like, I’m going to try out for volleyball,” she said with a laugh. “I had never played before seventh grade, but I … watched everybody else play. So I went out.

“I just remember my mom telling me, ‘You know you’ve never played volleyball, so if you don’t make the team, don’t be upset.' I just never forgot that. In the past I was so competitive (at other sports) and had been successful, but trying out for the first time, it was a little intimidating.”

And while she loved volleyball, Henderson wasn’t ready to make it an exclusive marriage.

“I still played everything,” she said. “I was real heavy into basketball at the time, too. I went from volleyball to basketball to track and field. So I still played everything. I would have been crazy if I didn’t. I was too competitive to not be busy not doing some type of sport.

“But volleyball really made an impression on me my sophomore year of high school.”

Why?

“That’s a good question,” she said. “Coach Miller. The team that we had from my sophomore to my senior year was just excellent. We were a group of girls that really wanted to learn. We were all super great athletes, and it was just a great family feeling. To be a part of that and to be successful at even more, it was fulfilling. So it made me want it that much more.”

Henderson, who was born and raised in Swansboro, said she began considering going into coaching as she neared graduation from Swansboro High School in 2003when, like many her age, she began to wonder what she “wanted to be.”

“I had other dreams, but it just seemed like being a leader and teaching and giving back is what I always ended up finding myself doing, even if it was doing camps during the summer or helping out younger kids,” she said.

“Even when I got to college I was still doing camps. So it was something that, I don’t know, it always sparked an interest in me, and when I got to college that’s when I knew that this is exactly what I want to do.

“And it’s great, and it can be my job, so that’s really what inspired me to do it. It came easy to me, and I had fun doing it. So I was like, why wouldn’t I want this to be my career?”